#69 Season 4 Episode 3

“Crowns are inherited, kingdoms are earned.”

The Republic and Gungan forces have been captured by Riff Tamson and his Karkarodon enforcers. Now, it is up to Ahsoka and the young Prince Lee-Char to unite the fractured people of Mon Cala and drive out the Separatist invaders.

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Original Airdate: 23 September 2011
Writer: Jose Molina
Director: Danny Keller

Concept Art and Trivia

The baton that Captain Ackbar carries is an homage to his original 1983 action figure that came with such an accessory. It was not originally intended to be a weapon — more of a pointing stick used in demonstrations and briefings. However, episodic director Danny Keller so vividly remembered using the stick as a blaster when playing with his Ackbar toy that it was worked into the show.

Brother Lemcke has what at first seems an odd choice of accessory: a walking staff. To make sense of such a prop for an underwater people, the staff was animated to be sinewy like an eel, suggesting it might be some sort of swimming aid.

The Mon Cala prison is the convert of Mon Calamari legislative chamber. This not only saves the expense of creating a new environment, it’s very telling of Riff Tamson’s sensibilities that he turns a democratic office into a dungeon.

Representative Tikkes — the Quarren Senator in Episode I, and a Separatist Senator in Episodes II and III, almost made an appearance in this episode. He was designed in concept art, but ultimately not included, since his placement in the Quarren power structure and his whereabouts in the war at this time would raise too many questions than could be comfortably answered in this already packed episode.

Kit Fisto’s line, “Eels. Very dangerous,” is a nod to Raiders of the Lost Ark, when Sallah says to Indiana Jones, “Asps. Very dangerous.”

Riff Tamson’s explosive death is an homage to the 1975 movie Jaws, when (spoilers!) Chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) explosively kills the shark by shooting an air tank crammed in its jaws.

Marine exobiologists take note: the enormous clam that holds the crown that Brother Lemcke presents is a lee romay, a name whose origin shouldn’t be too difficult to figure out.